I love the palette art choice. I am tired of playing RPGs that always look dark. I am tired of RPGs being always in dungeons and barely exploring the surface level. I get why dungeons are a compelling setting, its by definition an area where the DM can very well define walls and limit the area of play. BUT the more technology we have and the more we diverge with pen and paper the better to simulate appealing rich scenarios in the surface, with forests, meadows and diverse natural formations.
I agree that good surface settings are important and often overlooked. They can be more difficult to depict than enclosed settings, since the "background" in a clear atmosphere can be over 100 miles away, compared with very limited visibility for underground settings.
I did notice that BG3 uses a "fog" effect with an unnaturally strong extinction value that destroys distant views on the surface, so they must have difficulty with performance or with deciding how to provide acceptable backgrounds.
They also seem to be using a literal fog effect fading to white, rather than the more normal atmospheric scattering to blue or purple. This is all a shame, since their local surface environments are actually good, but they ruin the impact with the universal fog.
